


Basic Persuasive Essay: The Scarlet Letter

by goldenretrievers46



Category: The Scarlet Letter - All Media Types
Genre: Essay, Gen, non-fiction, persuasive essay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-14 14:25:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16494317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenretrievers46/pseuds/goldenretrievers46
Summary: Thesis Statement: Hester should not have committed adultery.





	Basic Persuasive Essay: The Scarlet Letter

Imagine your life being completely destroyed because of one choice you made. In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne is faced with this very problem. Everyone agrees that Hester was punished for her wrongdoing, but some people think Hester should not have committed adultery, and some people think Hester should have committed adultery. Hester should not have committed adultery for three reasons: the ostracization of Hester and Pearl, the guilt of Dimmesdale, and the changing of Chillingworth.   
The first reason Hester should not have committed adultery is the ostracization of Hester and Pearl. In the Puritan community, being an adulteress was punishable by law. Because Hester was caught in her sin, she was forced to stand on the pillory in front of the whole town while a scarlet letter “A” was pinned to her chest. She was forced to wear this letter for the rest of her life in shame. Beyond this, Hester and her infant daughter Pearl immediately became outcasts. They were gossiped about incessantly, and little Pearl did not have any friends. All they had was each other. Lastly, Pearl was almost taken away from Hester because the community feared her to be an incompetent mother, simply because her adulterous affair could’ve influenced Pearl’s elfish actions. Pearl was Hester’s joy, and it would’ve been devastating to her if she had lost Pearl.   
The second reason Hester should not have committed adultery is the guilt of Dimmesdale. As the brightest and most respected young minister in Massachusetts colony, no one expected him to be the man who conceived Pearl through the sin of adultery. Because of this, his sin remained hidden to the outside world, and his guilt began to drive him mad. He whipped himself on the back with a scourge out of remorse, and began to torture himself, causing a red, infected, and swollen “A” to appear on his chest. He also had hallucinations and fits of psychological insanity, seeing Hester and Pearl pointing at Hester’s “A”, and then at his own chest. Eventually, he dies after revealing his true nature to the town, undoubtedly from guilt, hidden pain, and from the torture he imposed on himself.  
The third reason Hester should not have committed adultery is the changing of Chillingworth. When Mr. Prynne arrived in Massachusetts to see his wife standing on the pillory, he was rightfully displeased. However, Hester’s deviance from her marriage vows reached into some evil part of the man, and he began a bloodthirsty quest to find her paramour, taking the alias of Roger Chillingworth. Though he was once a quiet, pious intellectual, he changed into a revenge-obsessed, hateful fiend. He sought out Arthur Dimmesdale and pretended to be his friend and a kind physician, when he was actually probing him and manipulating him into further self-hate. Lastly, the whole community began to recognize that Roger Chillingworth was a man of devilish nature. Pearl referred to him as “the Black Man”, a Puritan term for Satan, and even Hester herself noticed his shift in character, admitting to him that she herself had transformed a wise and just man into a fiend.  
In conclusion, Hester should not have committed adultery because of the ostracization of Hester and Pearl, the guilt of Dimmesdale, and the changing of Chillingworth. This matters to Hester, because through her choices she inadvertently changed the course of four lives for the worst: the lives of herself, her daughter, her husband, and her lover.


End file.
